"Humiliation and indifference, these are conditions every one of us finds unbearable - this is why the Coyote when falling is more concerned with the audience's opinion of him than he is with the inevitable result of too much gravity."

- Chuck Jones

"The past gathered out of the darkness where it had stayed, and the dead raised themselves to live before him; and the past and the dead flowed into the present among the alive, so that he had for an intense instant a vision of denseness into which he was compacted and from which he could not escape, and had no wish to escape. Tristan, Iseult the fair, walked before him; Paolo and Francesca whirled in the glowing dark; Helen and bright Paris, their faces bitter with consequence, rose from the gloom. And he was with them in a way that he could never be with his fellows who went from class to class, who found a local habitation in a large university in Columbia, Missouri, and who walked unheeding in a midwestern air."

- from John Williams' excellent Stoner (1965), pg. 16.

In another universe...

From the L.A. Times:

A hydrogen bomb would have fallen on North Carolina in 1961 but for one safety switch.

wolf-free islands off the coasts...

"Where attacks have been made on man by northern wolves, the animals have almost certainly been suffering from rabies, a disease which not infrequently affects them...

This behavior [i.e., healthy wolves refraining from attacking humans] is the more strange because wolves, although they normally eat carrion only when there is little alternative, readily unearth human corpses and devour them. This is well known from early records in countries such as Scotland, where cemeteries were removed to wolf-free islands off the coasts, and from reliable North American records. It is difficult to account for this behaviour in a predatory animal without entering realms of fantasy."

- from Richard Fiennes' fascinating The Order of Wolves (1976), pg. 19.

On his journey to Leopold's Congo in 1890...

"There were instances in which Mr. Henry M. Stanley sent one white man, with four or five Zanzibar soldiers, to make treaties with native chiefs. ... All the sleight-of-hand tricks had been carefully rehearsed, and he [the white man] was now ready for his work. A number of electric batteries had been purchased in London, and when attached to the arm under the coat, communicated with a band of ribbon which passed over the palm of the white brother's hand, and when he gave the black brother a cordial grasp of the hand the black brother was greatly surprised to find his white brother so strong, that he nearly knocked him off his feet in giving him the hand of fellowship. When the native inquired about the disparity of strength between himself and his white brother, he was told that the white man could pull up trees and perform the most prodigious feats of strength.

Next came the lens act. The white brother took from his pocket a cigar, carelessly bit off the end, held up his glass to the sun and complaisantly smoked his cigar to the great amazement and terror of his black brother. The white man explained his intimate relation to the sun, and declared that if he were to request him to burn up his black brother's village it would be done.

The third act was the gun trick. The white man took a percussion cap gun, tore the end of the paper which held the powder to the bullet, and poured the powder and paper into the gun, at the same time slipping the bullet into the sleeve of the left arm. A cap was placed upon the nipple of the gun, and the black brother was implored to set up off ten yards and shoot at his white brother to demonstrate his statements that he was a spirit, and, therefore, could not be killed. After much begging the the black brother aims the gun at his white brother, pulls the trigger, the gun is discharged, the white man stoops, and takes the bullet from his shoe!

By such means as these, too silly and disgusting to mention, and a few boxes of gin, whole villages have been signed away to your Majesty."

- George Washington Williams, 1890, "An Open Letter to His Serene Majesty Leopold II". Williams, an African-American civil war veteran, journeyed to the Congo in 1890 (the same year Conrad visited). He came, like Conrad, expecting to see the fruits of colonialism - hospitals, schools, gay adventuring. Instead he walked into one of the largest genocides in history: over a twenty-three year period, an estimated ten million Congo natives died from starvation, disease, and murder. This genocide was commanded by Leopold II of Belgium, who reaped humongous profits from Congo rubber and ivory.

On the end of Hamlet

"Nothing is resolved: there has been only prodigal death, of which the required one - Claudius's - is without catharsis. We do not know who the Ghost was, or whether he is now at peace, or whether Gertrude knew about her second husband, or how else Hamlet could have fulfilled himself - only that we could have done no better with his difficulties than he has. Denmark, once powerful, has been reduced to a client of Norway - largely through the activities of Hamlet. But of course his meaning is not contained by these circumstances, far from it. His body is to be taken, in a final pun, 'to the stage', a place of display and honour, with a sense of permanence, facing the sky. As the play closes on a single half-line of practical instruction and the lights go down on Hamlet, the frailty of his life, the permanence of his spirit, and above all his extraordinary enquiries, begin their long ringing in the ears. "

- Michael Pennington, 1996, Hamlet: A User's Guide, pg. 150. An excellent, insightful book on the great play, written from an actor's perspective (and a good actor's one at that).

maddened by the sound of harps...

"It is just because the main foes in Beowulf are inhuman that the story is larger and more significant...[The story] glimpses the cosmic and moves with the thought of all men concerning the fate of human life and efforts; it stands amid but above the petty wars of princes, and surpasses the dates and limits of historical periods, however important. At the beginning, and during its process, and most of all at the end, we look down as if from a visionary height upon the house of man in the valley of the world. A light starts - lixte se leoma ofer landa fela [that light shined over many lands] - and there is a sound of music; but the outer darkness and its hostile offspring lie ever in wait for the torches to fail and the voices to cease. Grendel is maddened by the sound of harps."

- Tolkien, 1936, "Beowulf: The Monster and the Critics", a once much-studied lecture. The echoes of a beautiful, most un-scholarly music can be heard behind this piece of academia; the same music, much amplified, would later haunt a masterpiece. Yet who in 1936 knew to look for the Beowulf-author's heir in the figure of a modest, obscure professor?

"Why ought people do what morality requires? The honest answer, I think, is that they ought to do it only if they care about the well-being of others; wish to live in harmony with them; want to avoid a life likely to be solitary, nasty, brutish, and short; are moved by examples of good lives; and are repelled by examples of evil ones. Such people are the friends of humanity. Humanity also has its enemies, and that is what evildoers indifferent to the moral "ought" are. It is important to bear in mind that evildoers are not mere backsliders who lie, steal, or cheat, but people whose actions cause monstrous harm. They do not just violate moral limits, but reveal a depraved attitude toward them. They are the sort of people who snatch an old woman from her deathbed in order to burn her alive, like the crusaders; who enjoy a cozy lunch between two bouts of mass murder, like Stangl; and who incite a mob to dismember and cannibalize live victims on mere suspicion of political dissent, like Robespierre. To think of such evildoers as enemies of humanity is not too strong a condemnation and to treat them as such is well deserved. ..."

- from John Kekes' (2005) The Roots of Evil, Cornell University Press, pg. 198. A well-argued book, sobering, clear-sighted and unromantic, although perhaps Kekes pays too little heed to  psychopathy as a disease. Not least among the book's virtues is simply being a university-press book that is actually readable.

For information sake

"...Aretino's dialogues are of additional literary interest for serving as the model for such works as L'Escole des Filles (1655), which appeared in English as The School of Venus (1688). It was the French version of this "novel" - consisting mainly of a discussion of sexual matters by two girls, Fanchon and Susanne - that was purchased on February 8, 1668, by His Majesty' Secretary of Naval Affairs, one Samuel Pepys. He characterized it as "the most bawdy, lewd book that I ever saw," and for this reason procured it "in plain binding, avoiding the buying of it better bound because I resolve, as soon as I have read it, to burn it." The next night, after consuming "a mighty good store of wine," he retreated to the privacy of his chamber, where he read the book "for information sake," then proceeded with the burning, "that it might not be among my books to my shame."

- from Hugh Rawson's enormously diverting Wicked Words. 

"[On the eve of the battle of Stones River], both commanders formed similar plans for the morrow: to turn the enemy's right, get into his rear, and cut him off from his base. As the two armies bedded down a few hundred yards from each other, their bands commenced a musical battle as prelude to the real thing next day. Northern musicians blared out "Yankee Doodle" and "Hail Columbia," and were answered across the way by "Dixie" and "The Bonnie Blue Flag." One band finally swung into the sentimental strains of "Home Sweet Home"; others picked it up and soon thousands of Yanks and Rebs who tomorrow would kill each other were singing the familiar words together."

- James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, pg. 580.

Almost 25,000 soldiers were killed, injured, or taken prisoner in the battle of Stones River, Dec. 31 1862 - Jan. 2, 1863.

A dissent

I recently watched the new movie "The Master" and was totally underwhelmed. Instead of insight into the dismal cult of scientology, American culture, or science fiction, we get a succession of archly significant scenes that neither deepens the one-dimensional characters nor furthers the little plot that exists. This movie contains all the usual gaucheries of contemporary film-making: gratuitous nudity, a confusion of yelling and profanity with dialogue, an inability to say anything concisely, a heavy-handed approach to theme, and overblown, sententious acting. Save your money.

GRADE: D-

I think nothing equals Macbeth.

"Shakespeare's plays appealed to [Lincoln] most. As a boy, he had memorized the soliloquies contained in William Scott's Lessons in Elocution, and in Springfield he owned and frequently read his own copy of Shakespeare's works, but he had never seen Shakespeare performed on the stage until he became President. After that he rarely missed an opportunity. In February and March 1864, at one of the most dangerous periods of the war, he took time off from his duties to see the great tragedian Edwin Booth perform in Richard III, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, and Hamlet.

Once his fondness for Shakespeare led to an embarrassment. In August 1863, after seeing James H. Hackett as Falstaff in Henry IV, he wrote the actor commending his performance and expressing the hope that he would have a chance to make his personal acquaintance when he next performed in Washington. The President went on to say that he had never read some of Shakespeare's plays, but that he had gone over others - mentioning King Lear, Richard III, Henry VIII, Hamlet, and Macbeth - "perhaps as frequently as any unprofessional reader." "I think nothing equals Macbeth," he added. "It is wonderful." Though the letter was intended to be personal, Hackett printed and distributed it, and newspapers had a field day, criticizing the President as would-be dramatic critic. To Hackett's apology Lincoln replied that the hostile comments "constitute a fair specimen of what has occurred to me through life." He added, in one of his most perfectly balanced sentences: "I have endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice; and have received a great deal of kindness, not quite free from ridicule. I am used to it." "

- from David Herbert Donald's Lincoln, p. 569.

Apart from a personal statement by Andrew Sarris

"Ms. Kael's work has been praised as "great...a body of criticism which can be compared with Shaw's" (Times Literary Supplement). She has won a National Book Award. So far as I know, apart from a personal statement by Andrew Sarris, which appeared in The Village Voice as this piece was going to press, the book has received uniformly favorable reviews. The New Republic describes it as consisting of "all peaks and no valleys." None of this is Ms. Kael's fault. It is only symptomatic. The pervasive, overbearing, and presumptuous "we," the intrusive "you," the questions, the debased note of righteousness and rude instruction - the whole verbal apparatus promotes, and relies upon, an incapacity to read. The writing falls somewhere between huckster copy (paeans to the favored product, diatribes against all other brands and their venal or deluded purchasers) and ideological pamphleteering: denouncings, exhortations, code words, excommunications, programs, threats. Apart from the taste for violence, however, which she takes to be a hard, intellectual position, there is no underlying text or theory. Only the review, virtually divorced from movies, as its own end..."

- From Renata Adler's review of a collection of Kael's "criticism", from 1981. With just a few substitutions, this attack can be used against any number of figures whose success depends upon "an incapacity to read" (Toni Morrison springs to mind).

Just as chickens brought up in a warehouse...

"Just as chickens brought up in a warehouse and who've never seen the sky still flinch at the silhouette of a hawk, I think humans -- even though we have all of our materialistic telephones and VCRs and whatnot -- still have that circuitry in our heads that makes us flinch and get goosebumps at any hint of real supernatural.

 When I was a kid -- you know you'd be scared of the dark, alone in your room -- I would think, "If I open my eyes and see a face hanging in the air next to the bed, I'm going to expire, I'm just going to die." And it doesn't matter if that face is hostile, or just curious. In the face of the supernatural I think I would just flop down dead. And I do think that sort of thing can be incorporated into contemporary settings. ... And I do think it's especially effective if you do it well in a contemporary setting. I mean, it's one thing to read about a witch stirring a cauldron in medieval Scotland or something -- you sort of say "Oh well, so what?" But if a writer can convince you that there really are ghosts at a drive-in theatre in Palm Springs, it's more immediate, it's more effective."

Interview with Tim Powers, here.

"A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment" - the first sentence of The Return of the Native. Who could read this without remembering this? :

a very bad winter

An entertaining website of curiosities and mementos involving The Shining can be found here.

Unconventional Director Sets Shakespeare Play In Time, Place Shakespeare Intended

Interesting take on The Merchant of Venice here. Some highlights: "Hiles said he became drawn to the prospect of setting the play in such an unorthodox locale while casually rereading the play early last year. He noticed that Venice was mentioned several times in the text, not only in character dialogue, but also in italics just before the first character speaks. After doing some additional research, Hiles also learned that 16th-century Europe was a troubled and tumultuous region plagued by a great intolerance toward Jews, historical context which could serve as the social backdrop for the play's central conflict."

all of it stage-lit by the harsh orange glare of new street lamps

"So at City Hall, she changed buses and began the long ride out to Ballymacarret. This time, the bus was almost empty as it rushed through the gritty gloom of evening, down grey drab streets, fringed by row upon row of mean little working-class houses, brick red, stone grey, each and every one the same. At each window, between fraying lace curtains, a coloured vase, a set of Union Jacks, or a figurine of a little girl holding her skirts up to wade, sat like little altars, turned towards the street for the edification of the neighbours.
 
She got off at the usual place, a stop near a factory. She walked along a street of tiny houses, tiny gimcrack shops, all of it stage-lit by the harsh orange glare of new street lamps. ..."

- Brian Moore, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, 1955. A satisfyingly gloomy book, precisely written and sympathetically rendered.

a few and solid authors

" 'Tis not a melancholy Utinam [Latin for 'would that!'] of my own, but the desires of better heads, that there were a general Synod; not to unite the incompatible difference of religion, but for the benefit of learning, to reduce it as it lay at first, in a few and solid authors; and to condemn to the fire those swarms and millions of Rhapsodies, begotten only to distract and abuse the weaker judgments of Scholars, and to maintain the trade and mystery of Typographers."

- Sir Thomas Browne, 1625, Religio Medici, Book I, XXIV.